ACCOUNTING REGULATION: AN ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVE

This paper analyses the debate over accounting regulation. Accepting the need for regulation, it first rejects the view of accounts as maps before going on question the conventional wisdom that the incompatibility of "interests" means that lack of agreement on standards is inevitable. It argues that conflicts over accounting standards are the result of clashes of worldview rather than interest, and provides evidence of this by analysing the debate over three contentious standards. The conclusion is that an agreed conceptual framework is feasible, although not on the basis currently envisaged.     

An indirect test of efficient city sizes

This paper develops a model which demonstrates necessary conditions for efficient distribution of labor across areas given the presence of agglomeration economies and congestion externalities. An indirect empirical test for efficient allocation is formulated based on a comparison of estimated agglomeration economies with the compensating variation in occupation-specific wages needed to attract workers to larger cities. The results of this test suggest that there are specific city size ranges where necessary conditions for efficient allocation of resources are not met, particularly for cities in the 1.5 to 2.5 million population range. Current claims that continued growth of the largest U. S. cities is inefficient are not confirmed by the empirical results.     

The President's Housing Commission and Two Tests of Realistic Recommendations

The most commendable work of the President's Housing Commission suffered from two major faults. First, the Commission failied to quantify the costs of alternative policies. This led to biased judgments about what forms of housing aids to adopt. The Commission rejected making housing vouchers for poor renters an entitlement program because that would be too costly. But it accepted continuation of present tax benefits for non-poor homeowners, though they are also entitlements vastly more expensive than the program it rejected. Second, the Commission correctly attacked local government restrictions for causing high housing costs. But it failed to provide any strong incentives for local governments to reduce such restrictions.     

Estimated importance of seasonal adjustment on energy forecasts

Conclusions A short-term petroleum model has been estimated and forecast using alternative seasonality routines. Parameter estimates were generally plausible ona priori grounds across routines. Five of the seven routines produced similar forecasts even if the differences in the similar forecasts could be troublesome. A policy scenario was analyzed and a spectrum of results was forth-coming. Much time, thought, and effort is often placed in estimating with deseasonalized data. This paper has shown the need to critically examine whatever seasonal routine is employed since seasonality sensitivity can overwhelm other effects. Forecasters have a justification for skepticism about “canned” seasonality routines. Seasonality has been shown to be important in terms of its impact on the final results; seasonality analysis should be examined and presented with as much care as the analysis of the deseasonalized data. Support for this project was provided by the Federal Energy Administration, Office of Oil and Gas.